Marilyn Writes

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 year banking career, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, and other major industry publications. The American Bankers Association (ABA) published Barnewall’s Profitable Private Banking: the Complete Blueprint, in 1987. She taught private banking at Colorado University for the ABA and trained private bankers in Singapore.

Sunday, October 01, 2017

NFL Fans Union (NFLFU) Speaks Out

By Marilyn M. Barnewall

Oct
01, 2017

In 1982, the National
Football League and the players were at logger heads. The players wanted
a bigger piece of the profit pie and the owners didn’t want to pay them more.

In the process of
arguing, both forgot about the people who provide the money for the high
profits owners were keeping and the high salaries players were demanding.

The players decided to
strike.

I called my attorney and
told him to file Articles of Incorporation for an organization I named the
National Football League Fans Union… the NFLFU (get your mind out of the
gutter). We were a fan advocacy organization. I, a conservative,
started a union… which proves you cannot believe everything you hear about
conservatives!

I called a press
conference to announce the formation of the NFLFU. I got permission from
the owner of the Denver Broncos at the time, Jerry Phipps, to hold the event at
Mile High Stadium. I stood on the 10 yard line in front of the South
stands at Mile High Stadium and read a press release. About 75 members of
the media were invited… 50 showed up.

We got good coverage
throughout the U.S. and around the world. I still have the clippings from
the papers in many of the cities that have NFL franchises… and many more.

The players’ union (yes,
the players belong to a union) and the owners were abusing the fans whose
financial support pays their salaries and provides their profits.

What was the problem in
1982? Both sides were showing a lack of respect and appreciation for the
fans.

What is the NFL problem
in 2017? It is clearly a lack of respect by players for the fans, their
nation, their flag, and their military. Player political opinions have
been blatantly forced on the fans and millions of television viewers who tune
in to watch a football game, not get an uninformed political opinion.

All Kaepernick and his
minions have achieved is to make it clear that football players disagree with
the people who elected President Donald Trump to office. They are so
arrogant as to think they know better who should have been elected.
Donald Trump did not call players SOBs… I would, but he did not. He
suggested that owners call them SOBs… And he has since Tweeted that
owners are afraid of their players. He’s right about that, too.

Players want to force
their political opinions on fans by protesting the flag of the nation that
makes it possible for a bunch of guys — many of whom would be flipping burgers
if not for the opportunities America makes possible. The fans really do
not give a damn what football player opinions are about politics. Players
do not have a right to force us to pay a large sum of money to find out what
they do not like about the world off of the football field. They sell
people tickets for one thing and provide another. In fact, it sounds like
fraud to me… but I’m not a lawyer.

Let’s make one thing
very clear. The Constitution gives the right of free speech to all
people. When you act as an individual, you may peacefully protest to your
heart’s content… but when you go to work, your employer is not forced by the
Constitution to put up with your protests. Your co-workers have rights,
too. And so do those who finance the business that provides your employment.
Thus, any team owner can take action against players “going to a knee” if they
choose (I hate that term.) When football players go onto a football
field, they enter as (highly over-paid) employees, not as individuals.

The same thing we see as
we watch players go to one knee to insult our flag and country as the national
anthem is played is the same problem we had in 1982 when I got so angry I
started a union for the fans to give them a say in the game they
subsidize. The owners and players have no respect for people – and they
have a very high opinion of themselves.

Taking a knee when the
National Anthem is played is not the core problem; it is merely a symptom of
it.

Who owns the stadiums in
which football games are played? These days, major corporations often
build the stadiums and get a huge amount of advertising from it. But who
owns the land? Who pays the property taxes? What kind of tax breaks
do owners get to keep a team in a city because of the huge sales tax income the
city/county get from $15 a beer charges with 50,000 people in the stands every
game, every football season? How much does that increase taxes for
average people in cities with NFL franchises? If tax breaks are given to
one party, other parties must pay for what the first party avoids paying.

Though it differs from
team-to-team (sometimes it’s the city/county, sometimes it’s the owners,
sometimes it’s a combination of the two), but the public often pays for the
stadiums, the property, the taxes, the tickets, and on and on. This results
in lucrative television contracts paid for by ridiculously high advertising
costs to corporations (which results in increased costs of products you buy
from football advertisers, from Budweiser to Ford, because it adds to costs).

If there were no people
in the stands, televised football games would be about as exciting as licking
envelopes. Advertisers certainly wouldn’t pay much for 30-second ads
without the excitement the fans bring to the game. And the fans have made
it very clear that they are opposed to football players – many of whom are not
the brightest candle on the cake – advertising their political opinions on the
field.

When someone pays from
$50 to $100 for a ticket to see a football game, the last thing on their
priority list is to have players disrespect their nation, their flag, and the
military that makes it possible for those doing the disrespecting to earn
ridiculous salaries because they can catch and throw a football – or because
they are able to prevent another team from running with or throwing and
catching a football.

Can you imagine the
arrogance of a player who walks onto a football field thinking that his
political opinions are so important he can force the person who paid a
lot of money to watch a football game aware of them?

The league, the owners,
and the players all receive massive rewards at the expense of America’s
football fans. Billions of dollars go to the NFL… even the Department of
Defense has paid them money. Perhaps it’s time for the NFL to pay some of
it back?

The American people have
invested approximately $7 billion in the various NFL teams. They have
received no respect, gratitude, thanks or appreciation from the league, the
owners, or the players. And that is the core problem that needs to be solved.

What’s the old 1970s
song? R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

It’s too bad the NFLFU
didn’t get enough financial support in 1982 to remain active. We sold
memberships, NFLFU hats and bumper stickers, but it needed a full-time
representative and I was a financial consultant who was traveling all the
time. We did do a lot of good, but once the season began, prostituted
though it was, people lost interest.

And that’s part of the
core problem, too.

We want things to go the
way they are supposed to go, the way people promise us they will go when we buy
season tickets or any other product – even when we elect politicians.
When things don’t go the way we want them, we become angry… as if we have no
responsibility for doing what is needed to make sure things go the way people
have promised us they will go before taking our money.

“We are not pro-player;
we are not pro-owner,” I said during that 1982 press conference. “Neither
are we anti-player or anti-owner. We are pro-fans! We want fans to
have a right to the first class football on which ticket sales were made.
We feel both owners and players have the responsibility to provide this based
on the ticket prices charged.”

If fans really want the
going to one knee to stop, get 50 fans in each city to file a class action suit
demanding a $10 rebate for all fans who find the one-kneeing offensive (for
each game in which it has occurred). It is not part of what they paid
for. It will be amazing how quickly team owners begin fining players for
one-kneeing the National Anthem.

We encouraged people to
write letters to sponsors of televised football games. “Tell them that
you will not purchase the sponsor’s product because anyone associated with the
game of football during the 1982 season does not have the better interests of
the people at heart.” I would encourage people to do the same in 2017.

We recommended that fans
boycott all products advertised by NFL players. We demanded refund
policies be put in place. For example, when season ticket sales promotion
literature was sent to the general public, no one told them the season was going
to be interrupted by a player strike (though management was aware it was a
possibility). We achieved that objective.

We – the NFLFU – were
concerned about the lack of third-party mediation. Talks were going
nowhere. Management was represented in the talks and so, through their
union, were players. But fans, whose ticket purchases finance the game,
were not represented. The NFLFU offered to provide trained mediators to
help bring the players’ strike to a conclusion acceptable to everyone.

The NFLFU wanted
management and players to guarantee no loss of ticket priority for fans who
refused to buy tickets during a player strike year. Teams like the Denver
Diapers – oops, I mean Broncos — and Seattle Snowflakes – oops, I mean Seahawks
– have a waiting list for upgrading existing season ticket seats when other
people with better seats let them go. If you miss buying your seasons
tickets one year, you lose your position on that list. We won that one,
too!

The NFLFU even
challenged a Supreme Court ruling made in 1922. It held that professional
sports were exempt from typical antitrust provisions because no product was
sold. I felt that ruling, made in a 1922 economic environment of
manufacturing rather than a 2017 economy of technology was antiquated. It
was – and it still is. The challenge was never resolved.

Perhaps we need a
Special Counsel appointed to the FBI to investigate whether professional sports
are exempt from antitrust provisions because each team certainly is a product…
especially when political positions are forced on fans! Maybe they could
add that to Robert Mueller’s witch hunt list.

This entire issue is
about respect… for our nation, our flag, our military and the people who work
hard to support them all. We all have problems. I would love
nothing better to have a pre-game two minutes to air my grievances to millions
of people watching the game… but the fans didn’t pay $98 a ticket to know what
I have on my mind – and they didn’t pay to hear what football players
have on theirs (unless it has to do with football).

The military fights,
bleeds, and dies so those players can make (I didn’t say “earn”) their
ridiculously high salaries. Our military fights under that flag..
Military caskets come home draped with the flag that the players
dishonor. 64% of Americans agree with President Trump’s position on this
issue… the other 36% are progressives and communists (which appear to be pretty
much the same thing, these days… based on Colin Kaepernick’s support for
communist Cuba, he’s probably in that group, too). NFL television ratings
are already down 11% this year compared to last (and they were down last year,
too – perhaps an attestation that League Commissioner Roger Goodell isn’t up to
the job he has?). Commissioner Goodell issued a statement saying that
President Trump is responsible for the divisiveness being caused by player
misbehavior (according to Goodell’s own Game Operations Manual). A small
man in a big job.

The NFL’s Game
Operations Manual says that “all players must be on the sideline for the
National Anthem” and must “stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in
their left hand, and refrain from talking or face discipline ‘such as fines,
suspensions’,” and teams may be required to forfeit draft choice(s) if owners allow
misbehavior. Well, owners are ignoring the misbehavior so perhaps it’s
time for the League to impose some forfeits of draft choices.

Just because our
Department of Justice has ignored constitutional law for the past 30 years does
not mean NFL team owners and the National Football League should ignore their
own Game Operations Manual.

What the people feel
about NFL players who so disgrace their nation, their flag, their military, and
the people who go to work every day to support those things and who love those
things, goes beyond disgust.

The Jacksonville Jaguars
and the Baltimore Ravens are the worst. They played a league game in
London and about two dozen of them went to one knee for America’s National Anthem and stood for God Save the Queen, the British Anthem. Their statements
that they mean no disrespect for our nation when they go to one knee is a
lie. Their actions prove they lie.

Jacksonville is a Navy
town. My son’s aircraft carrier was berthed there. If the President
decided to give Georgia – or perhaps South Carolina – the financial opportunity
of the thousands of sailors that are currently housed in Jacksonville, it would
be an economic disaster for the Jaguars. No one would have any money to
attend the games. Gosh, that would just break my heart.

As for Baltimore… who
would expect anything else from a city run like that one is? We all saw
what Baltimore is about in the matter of Freddie Gray’s death and the riots
that ensued. All six police officers charged by Marilyn Mosby,
Baltimore’s State Attorney, were found innocent of his death and in
mid-September the federal government said no charges were being considered by
them.

About Me

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career in 1956 as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 years (plus) as a banker and bank consultant, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, was U.S. Consulting Editor for Private Banker International (London/Dublin), and other major banking industry publications. Barnewall taught private banking at Colorado University and has authored seven banking books, one dog book, and two works of fiction and one biography.
Barnewall is the former editor of The National Peace Officer Magazine and has written editorials for the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Newsweek, etc. She has written for News With Views, World Net Daily, Canada Free Press, Christian Business Daily, Business Reform, and others. She has been quoted in Time, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other national and international publications. She can be found in Who's Who in America (2005-10), Who's Who of American Women (2006-10), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-10), and Who's Who in the World (2008).